The Reality-Based Community

 Let them eat cake

With all the skill and empathy of Lord John Russell devising a new twist on the Poor Law for the starving Irish peasantry, George Bush presents a package to aid and comfort the working-class Americans facing the loss of their homes. They should be particularly grateful for the $150 million for education in financial literacy. (Maxim 1: vote Democrat.)

Note this attempt at humour:

See, it's easy for me to stand up here and talk about refinancing -- some people don't even know what I'm talking about.

That's right. The poor are poor because they are stupid, not because they are unlucky, cheated, and abandoned by their elected government.

There's a thread at Crooked Timber on the bizarre proposal to enrol "mortgage service companies" in preventing the foreclosures which it is their daytime job to carry out. Noting an expert view that this will not work, commenter doug hits the nail on the head:

"Feature, not bug".